Gun Control

ok so to keep the concel thread free of this subject here it is. Lets keep a level head about this, its obvious we have different opinions on this subject but we are all adults, lets keep it calm and cool guys!

Quote:

Originally Posted by patrickockander

You lack perspective, my Canadian friend.

It really IS a simple concept.

I imagine your mind is already made up, but if it's not, take a look at this:

Gun control advocates used to claim that more guns meant more crime. Research demonstrated, though, that more guns meant less crime. As the criminology argument faded, gun control advocates began arguing guns were a public health problem.
But the public health argument is also bankrupt, according to Miguel A. Faria Jr., M.D., editor of the Medical Sentinel, the journal of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Faria lays out his reasoning in the Spring 2001 issue.
The U.S. public health establishment declared in 1979 that handguns should be eradicated, beginning with a 25 percent reduction by the year 2000. Since that time, hundreds of "scientific" articles have been published in medical journals supporting the notion that guns are a public health problem.
Faria's article spotlights many of the flaws of this research, including that of Dr. Arthur Kellerman of the Emory University School of Public Health. Since the mid-1980s, Dr. Kellerman used funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to publish research purporting to show that persons who keep guns in the home are more likely to be victims of homicide than those who don't.
Dr. Kellerman claimed in a 1986 New England Journal of Medicine study that having a firearm in the home is counter-productive. He reported "a gun owner is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than an intruder."

Dr. Faria points out that Dr. Kellerman's analysis ignored the vast majority of benefits from defensive uses of guns. Since only 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent of defensive uses of guns involve the death of the criminal, Dr. Kellerman's study underestimated the protective benefits of firearms -- in terms of lives saved, injuries prevented and related medical costs -- by a factor of as much as 1,000.

In a 1993 New England Journal of Medicine study, Dr. Kellerman again reported guns in the home are a greater risk to the victims than the assailants. In addition to repeating the errors of his prior research, Dr. Kellerman used studies of populations with disproportionately high rates of serious psychosocial dysfunction such as a history of arrest, drug abuse and domestic violence. Moreover, 71 percent of the victims were killed by assailants who didn't live in the victims' household, using guns presumably not kept in the home. Dr. Kellerman's conclusions depend on an apparent higher rate of homicides among households with guns compared to households without guns (45 percent vs. 36 percent). But Dr. Kellerman ignored his own data indicating there were enough false denials of gun ownership to reverse this result.
Controversy has also swirled around Dr. Kellerman's claim that gun availability increases the risk of suicide. Dr. Faria says "the overwhelming available evidence compiled from the psychiatric literature is that untreated or poorly managed depression is the real culprit behind high rates of suicide."
Backing this up is the observation that countries with strict gun control laws and low rates of firearm availability -- such as Japan, Germany and the Scandinavian countries -- have suicide rates that are 2 time to 3 times higher than for the U.S. In these countries, people simply substitute for guns other suicide methods such as Hara-Kiri, carbon monoxide suffocation, hanging, or chemical poisoning.
Dr. Faria also cites the work of Florida State University professor Gary Kleck and Yale University professor John R. Lott Jr. as serious challenges to gun control advocates' claim that guns are a public health problem.
In his books Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America and Targeting Guns, Kleck reports that firearms are used defensively 2.5 millions times per year, dwarfing offensive uses by criminals. Kleck says that 25 to 75 lives are saved by guns for every life lost by a gun. The medical costs saved by the defensive use of guns are 15 times greater than the costs caused by criminal use of firearms, according to Kleck.
Lott reports in his book, More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws that neither state waiting periods nor the Brady Law are associated with a reduction in crime rates. However, laws that permit the carrying of concealed weapons are associated with a 69 percent decrease in death rate from public, multiple shootings such as those that occurred in Jonesboro, Arkansas and Columbine High School.
Some concerned with gun violence in society have, in desperation, signed on to the gun control agenda. They are willing to trade basic American rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment for less violence. But it's not a fair trade.
The myth-busting work of Dr. Faria and others exposes gun control not only as being unlikely to reduce violence but also as having adverse safety and economic consequences. Junk science-fueled gun control misfires as a public health strategy.

I strongly disagree with most of these studies, they fail to take into account all the deaths caused by hand guns in other countries, such as Canada and Mexico. Criminals are buying guns at shops all across America and bringing them across the borders where they sell them for huge money to organized crime. There is one shop in the south east somewhere can't remember what state, that has sold guns traced from many gang slayings in Quebec, Toronto and Montreal. This shop sells the same guy 10-12 guns every couple weeks. I am not against guns at all, my dad has many guns and I one day would also like to have some guns, for hunting and protection. My problem is with hand guns and assault weapons. These guns are designed with one purpose and that is to kill people.
Here in Canada we have fairly strict gun control. To buy and own a gun you must have a valid FAC(Fire arm certificate) and you must register your gun with the gov't. To get a FAC you have to take a couple hour course on gun safety. The police have access to the central gun registry, and can see if a person owns a gun before they approach a vehicle or enter a residence. If you are a convicted felon, you can not own a gun. You can even legally own a handgun or assault rifle in Canada, but it is for range use only. It can not be carried on your person, it must be in a bag or case and you can only drive to and from the range. Off duty officers are allowed to carry concealed I believe.

"Itís not as if a 19-year-old in the United States is more evil than a 19-year-old in Australiaóthereís no evidence for that," Hemenway explains. "But a 19-year-old in America can very easily get a pistol. Thatís very hard to do in Australia. So when thereís a bar fight in Australia, somebody gets punched out or hit with a beer bottle. Here, they get shot."

In general, guns donít induce people to commit crimes. "What guns do is make crimes lethal," says Hemenway. They also make suicide attempts lethal: about 60 percent of suicides in America involve guns. "If you try to kill yourself with drugs, thereís a 2 to 3 percent chance of dying," he explains. "With guns, the chance is 90 percent."

I am a LIBERAL, I voted for OBAMA, I have more guns than fingers. I am a butcher by trade, I don't hunt animals, people or criminals. I like to fish and keep and kill the ones I eat. I grew up in a small town that is not so small now, I lost some friends who were not in the best business. I carry a gun almost all the time. Sad, yes. Realistic, yes. Prepared to defend my self and my loved ones, you bet your ass. My 85 year old grandmother, who is still alive described the country as the old west. As far as guns go, our country cut it's teeth with guns, we needed guns, the British hated our guns, the French sold us the guns, we adapted the guns and made them better, in the civil war we improved on them, ww1 guns were available by the ton in the 30's. In the late 50's you could buy a WW2 rifle for ten bucks. Our government sponcered markenship tournaments and still do to this day. I hate to tell any liberal, which I am one, but the guns are here. Deal with it. They aren't going anywhere. More than one half of my firearms were bought "personally" and the government doesnt have anything to do with me.

4 words. I am Gun Control. . but serioulsy though. people need to start watching how they handle their guns and prevent accidental discharges into innocent people. i believe in guns as well as the right to use them

"But a 19-year-old in America can very easily get a pistol. Thatís very hard to do in Australia. So when thereís a bar fight in Australia, somebody gets punched out or hit with a beer bottle. Here, they get shot."

Wait a minute... What is a 19 year old doing in a bar anyway? I never did that when I was 19.

I'm all for making it harder for people to purchase guns, but I don't think that the gov't should make it so you cannot own one or many guns.

I'll probably buy a handgun for everyday carry (Sig P229), shotgun for home defense (SuperNova tactical) and a rifle for the range (maybe a M1 Garand, I love those guns) once I'm able to afford them. Pistol will be defensive, shotgun will be defensive, and rifle will be for fun.